Spider-Man 4?

I was at Wal-Mart today to pick up some Halloween candy when what do I see? Spider-Man 3 is out on DVD. So of course we picked it up. We don't buy as many DVD's as we used to (our current collection contains 224 movies and 19 seasons of TV) but there's still some we just have to get. I know a lot of people didn't like the third Spider-Man (sure, I would have liked more time spent on the Sand man storyline) but I still liked the tension between Peter Parker and Mary-Jane Watson because of Peter's friendship with Gwen Stacy and I liked the conflict between Peter and Harry. I even liked Topher Grace's portrayal as Eddie Brock/Venom, even though he was a lot like his character on That 70's Show.Now at home I saw a story on Scifi.com saying that Sony has hired James Vanderbilt to write Spider-Man 4. I knew Sony had plans to film up to seven Spider-Man movies, but I would think a break would be a good idea for the cast and the fans. Tobey Maguire has said he wants a break, Sam Raimi says he might not come back for another film, and Kirsten Dunst says she wouldn't want to come back if Tobey and Sam don't. Since then I think Tobey backed off a little and would now entertain another film, but with Sony planning a 2009 release, isn't that a bit soon?We saw this happen with the Star Trek franchise. Sure, no Star Trek movie has come even close to what Spider-Man has done (Star Trek IV did just better than $100 million, Spider-Man 1-3 has brought in a combined US Box of $1.1 billion). But what Star Trek showed us was that too much at a time can drive even your core fans away (Star Trek X, though I thought it was a good film, tanked in theaters, and Enterprise, admittedly the worst of the series, was canceled after only four seasons. Short for a Star Trek series). As popular as Spider-Man has been, if Sony gets too greedy, the fans, the stars, and the director will leave. But will Sony care? Who knows.
If Sam Raimi has enough of a say on things, the franchise may continue to do well. If Peter and Mary Jane's relationship can stay interesting and not get boring or repetitive, if the villains can be conflicted and touch us (as Sandman did, and could have done more given the time), then maybe we'll be okay. But I've seen too many good things get screwed up because those in power (the studios) don't realize what makes it good. So, I'll cross my fingers and wait until 2009.
Oh, and Happy Halloween! Pics of the son to come.

Firefly: Where are they now?

So every once in a while I'll think about shows I liked that aren't on anymore and I'll check out imdb. com to see what happened to the actors. Recent show? Firefly. It was a great show that lasted for 13 episodes and was translated into a movie (Serenity). It was one of those that was hard to explain why people should like it:

1. Joss Whedon created it, so it must be okay.
2. It was a SciFi/Western, but that's cooler than it sounds. No really.
3. It had immediately likable characters.
4. Um, it was just really cool, okay?

But anyway, here's the people and what they're doing now:
Nathan Fillion:
Played Alex Tully on the extremely lived Fox show "Drive" (yes, another show they screwed up) created by Firefly co-creator Tim Minear. He now has a recurring role as Adam Mayfair on "Desperate Housewives" (sorry, as much as I like him, I'm not watching it). He is currently filming a movie to be released next year called "Trucker". Imdb says its about a woman trucker that takes in her son. Doesn't sound too exciting, but it's got Mal in it.
Gina Torres:
Starred in the failed series "Standoff" on Fox. What's with that network? She is now filming "South of Pico". Imdb describes it thus: " Four strangers on a day in Los Angeles seek emotional connections in their lives only to fail again and again."
Alan Tudyk:
In 2007 alone he has starred in "Meet Market", "Death at a Funeral", "Knocked Up", and "3:10 to Yuma". As of now he has no projects on the horizon.
Morena Baccarin:
Has played Adria on five episodes of "Stargate SG-1" and is filming the direct-to-DVD follow up "Stargate: The Ark of Truth". She also played Nurse Jessica Kivala on a TV show called "Heartland". Okay, never heard of it, but it aired for 9 episodes this year.
Adam Baldwin:
This dudes done a lot, so I'm going to bullet point some of the highlights:

• "The Inside" as Special Agent Danny Love for 13 episodes;
• "Day Break" as Chad Shelton for 13 episodes;
• NBC's new series "Chuck" as John Casey
• Filmed "Gospel Hill" with Julia Stiles, Danny Glover, and Angela Bassett
• Filmed "Little Fish, Strange Pond" to be released next year.

Jewel Staite:
She is a permanent addition to the cast of "Stargate: Atlantis" as Dr. Jennifer Keller. She is filming "The Tribe" for a 2009 release.
Sean Maher:
He hasn't done a whole lot since Firefly/Serenity. Among what he has done is an episode of "Ghost Whisperer" and two movies: "Living 'til the End" and "Wedding Wars" (TV).
Summer Glau:
Seven episodes as Crystal Burns on "The Unit", Eight episodes as Tess Doerner on "The 4400", and she is currently working on "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV show as Cameron, which should come out on Fox in January.
Ron Glass:
He has done three episodes on "Shark" as Judge Stewart Fenton.

Pushing Daisies

I was caught by surprise by this show. Friday I happened to be online and somehow ran into a mention of this show. When I was looking for new shows to check out, somehow this one didn't seem appealing. But on a second look I noticed I liked to of the actors Anna Friel (best remembered by me from Timeline) and Kristin Chenoweth (from Broadway's Wicked). Then I noticed the plotline and thought that seemed interesting.

The basic gist is that the main character, Ned (Lee Pace) discovers at a young age that if he touches something or someone that has died, they come back to life. But if he ever touches them again they die permanently. He also learns that if he leaves someone that he has resuscitated alive for more than one minute, someone else will have to die to pay the balance. He learns all of this when his mother dies of a brain aneurysm when he is a child. He revives her only to have the father of his childhood sweetheart fall down dead. That night as his mother puts him to bed, his mother kisses him, killing her again. This time she is permanently dead.

Ned grows up and starts a pie restaurant called The Pie Hole. It seems his mother made pies when he was younger and he is now obsessed with pie making. The fact that he can bring dead things back to life makes it so he can touch a bad fruit and it will become fresh again, just as long as he doesn't touch it again.A private investigator (Chi McBride) discovers Ned's ability and proposes that they track down people who have recently died, revive them long enough to find out how they died, then collect reward money.

This works just fine until he runs into the corpse of his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel) who goes by the nickname Chuck. Once he revives her he finds he can't kill her again. So he sneaks her away from the cemetery and she joins him in his new occupation. They are completely in love with each, but neither can touch the other or his new love will die and this time he won't be able to bring her back.

Rounding out the cast is a beautiful and quirky waitress, Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), who would like to be closer to Ned. Ned, however, is nervous about being close to anyone after the death of his mother.

The show is narrated by Jim Dale, who voices the Harry Potter books on CD. Pushing Daisies has a very Charlies and the Chocolate Factory meets Edward Scissorhands/Tim Burton feel to it. I really don't see this show making it. It seems to quirky and intelligent for most audiences, but perhaps ABC will be able to make it work. For myself, the show was very entertaining and very funny.

Pushing Daisies airs Wednesday nights at 7pm central on ABC.

NBC getting it right

I missed the second episode of Bionic Woman Wednesday (I was at work and forgot to tape it), but never fear! You can watch some shows at NBC.com for free. So I caught the episode online today, which was nice because I could watch an hour long episode in 42 minutes (with only a few Target commercials added in). After last year's disappointing season, NBC seems to be getting some things right. Capitalize on the success of Heroes with a show like Bionic Woman (and several other scifi related shows) and give me the chance to catch missed episodes online. Good idea.

But on to the episode. It started out with a news report of the small town of Paradise, Idaho, population 201, that was being quarantined for unknown reasons. From there we go to Jaime, fresh from her boyfriend's funeral, getting smashed at a bar. In her sadness, she takes a random guy to the bathroom for a sexual encounter. It goes bad when she throws him against a stall too hard and breaks his rib.

From there she leaves and encounters a woman about to jump from the top of a building to kill herself. With her enhanced speed and strength she is able to save the woman. Now she wants to try the 'saving the world' thing. But she has ground rules for her new employers:

• She has to be in by 7pm for dinner with her sister
• She can't work weekends
• Her sister has to be covered on her health plan
• She has to be at her sister's talent show later in the week

Without necessarily agreeing to any of those terms, she joins and starts training.

She quickly learns that her new technology doesn't mean much if she can't use it.

Jae Kim, the man that trained the first Bionic Woman (Katee Sackhoff) teaches her that someone skilled enough can beat her. She has to learn how to use the technology within her.

Shortly after the beginning her training she learns that the residents of the Idaho town were exposed to a chemical named DMC-30 that had been developed by the people that created her bionic technology. Everyone in the town is dead. She accompanies Ruth Treadwell to the town to discover what exactly happened.

What they find is a ghost town, 200 residents dead with just one survivor. The survivor tells them that trucks drove around the town the night before, circling the town. They soon learn that Paradise was a test run for a larger biological attack against multiple US cities. With the help of Jaime, the team is able to stop the threat. Though shaken up, Jaime realizes that this is what she wants to do.

Through all of this Jaime is going through the drama of trying to raise her little sister (played by Lucy Hale). Her sister is going through troubles at school and keeps threatening to go live with her father. At the end of the show Jaime makes it back in time for her talent show and convinces her to stay with her.

Sad Hugs

I still have one more day at work but yesterday was almost a last day in several respects. It was the last day I would see some people that have come to be friends. There's Rossy, whom I've worked with for two years now, Jacqui, that I've only worked with for a few months, and Amy, who I don't think really liked me at first, but has come to at least tolerate. It got me to thinking that as I move on I won't really get to see people that I've come to like. I hate saying goodbye to people I like.So I started to think about saying goodbye. I'm not much for it, so I usually just leave. Trying to make it last longer hurts and can be awkward. But I did leave some of the people I cared about with a hug. I wonder, though, what a hug is, where did it come from? I checked Wikipedia, but didn't come up with a good answer. It says that it communicates love, affection, friendship, and warmth (both literally and figuratively).
I like that last one, warmth. Hugs are warm. But it is also an almost intimate gesture. You don't hug people you don't like. You don't hug people you feel uncomfortable around. You hug those you care about, those that you trust, and those that make you feel good. In a hug you share a lot of body area and you aren't afraid of being judged. To me, a hug says, 'I care about you and think enough of you to share a moment of trust.'Am I reading too much into that? I don't know. But hugs feel good and make me happy. It can be relaxing. It can communicate a lot that words just aren't sufficient for. Frustration, fear, and sadness can be let out with a hug. When it's my time to go, I think a hug would be a good way to say goodbye.
*No, I do not know anyone in any of these pictures, so I hope no one finds themselves posted here and get offended.